


If I Knew You Were Comin'....two comment fics about cake

by rispacooper



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Baking, Comment Fic, First Kiss, Fluff, Food, M/M, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-07
Updated: 2011-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-27 01:05:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rispacooper/pseuds/rispacooper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Alex admitted he had *feelings* Hank would reject him, he is very certain of that. Yet he cannot stop making him special cakes, because his love, it is strong and fierce and sugary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Knew You Were Comin'....two comment fics about cake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffeebuddha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeebuddha/gifts).



> I was tipsy and asked for commentfic prompts. Coffeebuddha, who can decorate a cake like nobody's business, asked for adorable. These are what she got. Two commentfics, in different styles, but in the same timeline/verse.

It starts like this: Alex knows how to make a cake.

Actually, it starts like this: One day, when they are all whole, when Hank still looks human, Alex accidentally reveals that he knows how to make a cake when they're in town and passing a bakery and he remarks softly, to himself, like the words themselves are fragile, that he'd wished he'd been able to make all those fancy icing decorations on his cakes before he remembers that other people can hear him and he shuts up.

What happens after that is, for whatever reason, Hank can't stop thinking about it. _Alex_ , baking a cake. Tough, wary, prickly Alex Summers, baking at all, baking anything much less a cake. Hank can't figure it out.

Baking to Hank is at once an arcane sort of magic and a series of chemical reactions that he knows he should be able to master, but can't. He thinks of it when he thinks of his mother, though she had only baked when forced and then only birthday cakes for him.

It isn't a womanly activity however, Hank knows that, the famous pastry chefs are almost male. Yet when he pictures Alex, Alex before prison, young Alex with an even younger brother, he pictures him buzzing with energy in a kitchen too large for him, frowning and focused on each teaspoon, on every second ticking by on a timer over the oven until the cake is perfect, because it has to be perfect.

Hank had pictured it vaguely when he'd still looked like a man, but he obsesses over the image now that he is a beast. He pictures an apron, and he pictures Alex letting his younger brother lick the spoon, and then he pictures Alex staring with a familiar, sparking frustration at pastries for sale in stores, elaborate wedding cakes in the windows of Italian bakeries, wanting to learn, having no one to ask.

Hank can't take the thought of anyone not learning what they want to learn, especially not Alex, who takes so little joy in things and who so rarely smiles.

It ends like this: Hank sends Sean into town with instructions and leaves the bags Sean returns with in the kitchen where he knows Alex will find them. He doesn't know what's needed off hand, but he can guess, and there's sugars and milk and butter and eggs and books, as well as measuring cups and spoons, because this is science, and science is to be respected.

He doesn't venture down to watch Alex's reaction and he doesn't leave a note on the bags. Alex has a temper, and Hank supposes it is strange enough that he can't get the thought of Alex Summers baking out of his head that he doesn't want to explain how he thinks about it, how he wants Alex to smile and learn, and more than anything, he doesn't want Alex to know that the ideas of Alex and cake, icing, are now intertwined in his head. So he stays in his lab for the rest of the day and into part of the night and emerges once the mansion seems quiet and there's been no sign of a furious, embarrassed Alex Summers wreaking havoc or barging into his lab to demand an explanation.

Hank cleans up in his room and then creeps to the kitchen to get himself something to eat and maybe, maybe see if Alex has at least considered his offer.

Actually, it ends like this: In the kitchen, Hank finds a perfectly shaped rectangle of white sheet cake, covered in somewhat stiff, slightly heavy frosting. There are crooked roses and curlicues around the bottom. There are ivory leaves at one corner and a blob at another that Hank, uncertainly, hot all over, thinks might be a heart though then again it might just be a blob.

There are also three blue words written indecorously across the top, _For you, Bozo_. And one just beneath them. _Thanks_.

 

~~~~~

 

"How much are you going to pack on, Bozo?" Hank was unsurprised at the taunt yet irritated just the same, and didn't look over though he knew Alex was watching him.

Hank _had_ gained some weight, it was true, something he'd relearned just that morning when trying to put his lab coat on. It had stretched thinly over his shoulders, practically creaking at the seams.

He had hoped the weight gain was due to his new form interacting with his mutation, but he had known, even as he'd weighed himself, that his new mass was directly attributable to the cakes that Alex had spent the past few weeks making and leaving out for him to eat.

He didn't understand why no one else seemed to be gaining any weight. He supposed it was just his luck that now he would not only be a furry beast, but a large one as well.

At least he hadn't developed a belly. He felt he was too young for a paunch. So far the weight had just seemed to add to his...presence...as Charles had said. Made him even more noticeable, bigger, heavier.

He felt clumsy at Alex's words and dropped the hand that had been reaching for the plate of small, saucer-sized cakes that Alex had left out.

It was true that the rest of the cake had been put away for the others to eat in the morning, but just because these had been left out didn't mean that they were for Hank. It had been silly of him to assume that they were.

He finally looked over. "I..." The apology for eating all the midnight cakes and iced confections that Alex had been leaving in the kitchen died in his throat at the sight of Alex, in an apron, holding some kind of soft device and using it to squeeze frosting carefully over the top of another piece of cake.

He had bits of frosting on his fingers and he was smiling, to himself, or maybe at Hank and how much Hank obviously loved his creations.

"It's very good cake," Hank said instead and Alex's hands stopped for a moment. He didn't look over, but the heat of the kitchen turned his cheeks red.

"Just eat it, blimpy," he pushed out, after a small pause, and bent back over a cake.

When Alex wasn't training to focus his power better, he baked. The kitchen was now considered his, no question. He was scary when he was angry. Hank frowned at him anyway.

"No thank you," he said as firmly as he could with the scent of sugar in the air and then frowned harder when the smile disappeared from Alex's face. "I should have some real dinner."

Alex straightened and waved his hand. "But...you can't just eat _dinner_ when I've made you dessert."

"Yes, I can." Hank nodded to show he could only to stop when Alex immediately came forward until he was practically toe to toe with Hank. He brought his current project with him. It was another saucer-sized cake and it looked like chocolate, with some kind of a gooey, rich fudge frosting swept across the top. He held it up under Hank's nose. It had flowers circling the base, delicate red roses. Alex's learning curve was incredible.

Hank stared at him rather helplessly. Alex stared back.

"You don't..." Alex seemed lost for words. "You don't want it?"

Hank frowned harder with all this temptation so close and pushed up his glasses.

"Of course I do," he instantly acquiesced, anything to bring Alex's smile back, and picked the cake up. Sizable though it was, he finished it in two bites and was left to lick frosting from his fingertips.

"You're going to get fat at this rate," Alex mocked him in a husky voice that was different from how he usually talked and Hank's head went back. "You've really liked them?" Alex wondered before Hank could object and then lowered his gaze to stare at Hank's body when Hank tried to answer as noncommittally as he could.

"Yes, well..." He hesitated, feeling his new size when Alex's eyes widened. He abruptly became aware that the kitchen was very bright while the house itself was very dark and most likely no one else was up, and yet Alex had been awake anyway, decorating a cake that no one but Hank was going to eat. His motions seemed too slow. When he finally finished getting every trace of chocolate from his fingers, licking every last bit under Alex's close attention, his voice seemed too quiet. "They're very good."

"Bozo," Alex started, then shook his head once in a small gesture of frustration and surged forward. Hank was more startled by the sensation of a tongue, Alex's tongue, licking frosting from his lips, than aroused. But only for a moment, and then before he could think, Alex's hands were on him, and he was pushing back to kiss Alex in return, as best as he could, as best as he knew how, which wasn't saying much, not that Alex seemed to mind.

His hands, red and green with icing roses, dark with cocoa for Hank, slid around Hank's bulk and pulled it closer, and he smiled, _smiled_ , at Hank's hunger, awkward though he knew it was. Hank smiled too, in between gasping for air, and tasting chocolate on Alex's tongue, and cataloging the startlingly hot pressure of Alex's body against his, because this, like those cakes, was just for him.


End file.
